Facebook: Cops can’t use our data for surveillance

Facebook is cutting police departments offff from a vast trove of data that has been increasingly used to monitor protesters and activists.

The move, which the social network announced Monday, comes in the wake of concerns over law enforcement’s tracking of protesters’ social media accounts in places such as Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore. It also comes at a time when chief executive Mark Zuckerberg says he is expanding the company’s mission from merely “connecting the world” into friend networks to promoting safety and community.

Although the social network’s core business is advertising, Facebook, along with Twitter and Facebook-owned I nst agram, also provide s developers access to users’ public feeds. The developers use the data to monitor trends and public events. For example, advertisers have tracked how and which consumers are discussing their products, while the Red Cross has used social data to get real-time information during disasters such as Hurricane Sandy.

But the social net works have come under f i re for working with third parties who market the data to law enforcement. Last year, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter cut offff access to Geofeedia, a startup that shared data with law enforcement, in response to an investigation by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU published documents that made references to tracking activists at protests in Baltimore in 2015 after the death of a black man, Freddie Gray, while in police custody and also to protests in Ferguson in 2014 after the police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old.

On Monday, Fa c e b o o k updated its instructions for developers to say that they cannot “use data obtained from us to provide tools that are used for surveillance.”

The company also said, in an accompanying blog post, that it had kicked other developers offff the platform since it had cut ties with Geofeedia.

Until now, Facebook hasn’t been explicit about who can use information that users post publicly. This can include a person’s friend list, location, birthday, profile picture, education history, rela- tionship status and political affiffiliation — if they make their profifile or certain posts public.

Some departments have praised the tools, which they say helps them fifight crime — for example, if gang leaders publicly post references to their crimes.

In a statement about the changes, which were the results of several months of conversations with activists, the ACLU and other groups lauded Facebook’s move as a “fifirst step.”

“We depend on social networks to connect and communicate about the most important issues in our lives and the core political and social issues in our country,” Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties director at the ACLU of California, said in the statement. “Now more than ever, we expect companies to slam shut any surveillance side doors and make sure nobody can use their platforms to target people of color and activists.”

Police and federal agencies may still siphon people’s feeds in c ases of national disasters and emergencies. It was unclear how Facebook would decide which emergencies and public events would warrant monitoring citizens’ data.